[Music]

when we lie our bodies get very weak for

example stick your arm out and say I

love fresh air I love fresh

air now I want you to do that while

lying and the LIE I'd like you to say is

I love to vomit say it I love to vomit

that's so weird you now say I love fresh

air I love fresh air you now say I love

to vomit I love to vomit why is that

it's because the way the brain is

structured and there are many tricks do

you want to do some more sure Martha

Beck PhD is a Harvard trained

sociologist and world renowned life

coach whose notable clients include

Oprah Winfrey her neurological based

techniques have helped individuals cope

and adapt to an anxiety addicted world

so our brains were biologically

pre-programmed to be anxious taught by

innocently believing Lies by

socialization or trauma socialization

says you're not good enough you should

try harder that was a bad choice all

kinds of things and Trauma tells you oh

my God everything's dangerous all the

time and then it creats horror stories

that haven't happened yet to make you

safe but the thing about anxiety is that

you get stuck in the anxiety spiral it

just keeps getting worse for example I

have memories and a lot of physical

scarring from sexual abuse which started

at 5 years old and then by the time I

was 30 I had depression and anxiety been

bedridden with autoimmune diseases

thinking I could just kill myself but I

can tell you with 100% certainty it is

possible to trick our brains and shut

down anxiety so if I'm feeling anxious

what would you recommend that I do

here's one of my

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you so much

Dr Martha within all your work what is

it that you're aiming to do and I guess

most

importantly equally importantly who are

you aiming to do it

for I could give you the normal answer

which goes down easily with most people

or I could give you the truth which

sounds really weird I'll take the truth

I was hoping you would say that so um in

all my work and this means from the time

I was little um I remember being

dreadfully anxious about not having done

enough toward it on the night before my

birthday one one year I was lying there

thinking I am supposed there's something

I'm supposed to help with on the earth

and I have not done enough and I've got

to get moving here and the next day I

turned

four so ever since I was little my whole

intent has been based on this feeling

that I was meant to help with a shift

that would happen in the world during my

lifetime and I did not know what it was

so I would ask myself what what is it I

would spend hours thinking what is it

and the only thing I got as an answer

was this poet this bit of poetry from TS

Elliot and it goes I said to my soul be

still and wait without love for for it

would be love of the wrong thing and

wait without hope for it would be hope

of the wrong thing there is yet Faith

but the love and the hope and the faith

are all in the waiting wait without

thought for you are not ready for

thought so the darkness shall be the

light and the Stillness the

dancing all

right as I got older and studied more I

began to think

what I'm meant to help with is a shift

in the way human beings perceive and

think and that is why I couldn't know

what it was

because to explain to someone a

fundamental shift in the way they think

would have to be processed through the

way they're thinking now and so it would

be fundamentally

misunderstood

so now I'm old and I don't care what

people think of me so I just say this

right out loud I used to it was a deep

Secret in my heart for decades and now I

just say I think there is going to be a

shift in the way in human

consciousness and I think it is going to

change the way humans relate to the

planet relate to each other relate to

themselves and I could be wrong but I

don't care I'm going to keep trying for

it till the day I

die and what is that shift in human

consciousness that you're predicting

wait without without thought but

actually no I I actually have a theory

now um my undergraduate degree was in

East Asian

studies I lived in Asia and studied

Chinese and Japanese and they have a

concept in Asia that is not well known

in modern Western culture and that is

the concept of Awakening and it's

Awakening out of the dream of thought

which is I mean the whole thing is now

like half of our listeners are at this

point probably thinking Steven has

brought a lunatic to the program I will

not listen to this episode but I'm

promising you it gets really cool if you

focus on it because when you awaken and

it's a it's a shift in the way a

fundamental perception it's also very

strong in India Tibet and the other

Buddhist countries it's a shift where

you you leave the aspects of your

thinking that cause you internal

suffering you see to suffer after you

awaken I think that's actually an

epigenetic shift that is inherent in the

brain of every individual and that many

individuals throughout history have gone

through it the great teachers uh I think

Nelson Mandela went through it in

prisent Robin Island so all over the

world in different cultures in different

parts of the world throughout history

individuals have described this

experience with very very consistent

terminology you awaken you realize that

the life you've been living is real but

only in the way a dream is real and that

the reality of the awakened state is

much more real and in that state there's

no fear there's no suffering there is

infinite compassion there is the desire

to serve there is love for all beings

not just every human but every being

there is and there is a kind of

fundamental peace and Bliss the Bliss of

being they call it in Sanskrit sa

tananda the Bliss of being becomes your

everyday

State I think if a critical number of

people experience that at the same

time we could just fix the problems

humans have been causing for the last

few thousand

years how could you persuade anybody

that that state of being is even

possible well I have a few

tricks there's no

persuading um I could show you a few

things if you want that I tend to do

when I'm coaching people so well let's

get on to that then um who are you in

terms of your

qualifications I am a person who has

experienced intense psychological and

physical suffering for decades

um absolute wreck of a human being

physically I was by the time I was 30 I

had been bedridden for 10 years with

autoimmune

diseases um had depression and anxiety

in massive amounts from the time I was

very small and then I actually had an

experience during a surgery which was

like a near-death

experience um where I felt like I saw

this light and I felt connected to it um

more than connected to it I

felt radically shifted and I came out of

that surgery and

changed I stopped telling a single lie

with any aspect of my speech

Behavior I would not lie after that so

in the next year that was a very

exciting year um I walked away from my

family religion which was very very

important in my my home community so

that meant I lost my family of origin my

community of origin every friend I'd had

before the age of 17 when I left for

college um I realized I was gay so I

left that was the end of my marriage um

I had to leave my home I had to leave my

I left

Academia basically threw everything into

the bonfire and I would not recommend

this to anyone listening out there don't

do I did this so you would not have to I

can tell you there are easier

ways but through it all through

everything I have studied with my mind

and through everything I've experienced

with my body and my

heart I'm not say I

awakened but I feel I know what

Awakening is and for that reason I feel

very safe in the world and very

joyful all I can say is this is in

you um I'm I may be able to help you

find it mhm but I I don't need to create

it who have you worked with on a

one-on-one basis what are the different

types of individuals that have asked for

your help and support everybody I mean

I've worked with homeless heroin addicts

on the streets of Phoenix because I

truly believe that the experience I had

in surgery with this light this absolute

homecoming and peace I actually

gravitated to addicts even though I've

never been addicted to substance because

when they say they can't live without

that first heroin hit that's how I felt

after coming out of that experience that

that light I was like I cannot live

without that and so I would tell the

heroin addicts I believe you're meant to

have that feeling you long for so much

but I also think you you get to keep

your teeth you know like there's another

way so I've worked with people like that

I've had had billionaires

clients I have counseled people in

prison because I'm a sociologist and if

I say something works for Humanity it

has to work across cultures and in all

situations poverty wealth captivity

Freedom um any situation it has to work

before I'll say I'll put my stamp on it

and say yeah I think that works and who

when you talk about you know helping

billionaires what do they come to you

seeking

or do they just Express symptoms or

something you know what almost everyone

has the same major problem and it's not

what you would think they want to know

their purpose they want to know why the

hell they're even here humans are the

only animals so far as we know that live

on a day-to-day basis with the

consciousness of our mortality we are

going to die so why are we even here

what am I doing here and it's it's the

same whether you're talking to someone

on the street or someone with a billion

dollars that desperation to know why

we're here and I think it comes out of a

culture that has fundamentally pulled us

away from from our inherent knowledge of

what we're meant to be and put us in a

place where we are obsessed with

productivity and consumption and

production of material

wealth and has actually cut us off off

from our own sense of meaning and that

that's actually in the brain that you

get stuck in a part of the left

hemisphere that is obsessed with

grabbing things and owning things and

controlling things and it's always

afraid it's always grasping and it

refuses to believe that anything but

itself exists but on the other side of

the

brain there is the self that connects

with meaning purpose

relationship

connection and living in a state of

nature as everyone did until a few

hundred years ago almost

everyone we would wake up a human would

wake up hearing wind and bird song and

other people's

voices they would rise and go to bed

according to the sunlight and the

temperature they had intimate

relationships with animals and with

plants and with the Earth

itself all of our biology evolved to be

in that situation we in one

Anthropologist called it the weird

societies Western educated

industrialized Rich Democratic we have a

fundamentally different way of living we

get up surrounded by artificial light we

push ourselves all day to do things that

we would never have done 300 years ago

spreadsheets um sitting next to people

we barely know who are assigned to be

there because we have similar tasks

which is a system based on Factory labor

which is horrible for people not to

solve real problems that matter to you

but to catch on to something that an

adult already knows who's going to

punish you or shame you depending on

whether you get the right answer or the

wrong it's a

bizarre very left hemosphere dominated

Society so Ian mcgilchrist my favorite

philosopher a neurologist or

psychiatrist says the whole culture

functions like someone with a severe

right hemisphere of stroke we live in a

bizarre crazy culture and we do not know

why we're here because we don't have

access to our sense of

meaning I just wanted to ask you you

know of all the things you could have

written about at this exact moment in

time you chose to write a book about

anxiety it's called Beyond anxiety

curiosity creativity and finding your

life's purpose

why did you choose that subject and

specifically this word anxiety above

everything else you could have written

about so after I wrote The Way of

Integrity where I say look if you

Integrity to me means that you are whole

and in that's the what the word means it

means intact it doesn't mean like

morally it just means structurally if

all your meaning making systems are in

order or are it's telling the same story

body heart Spirit mind if those are all

in agreement there is a kind of

grounding in reality and in that

reality what happens when you get into

that reality is you begin to awaken you

begin to experience spontaneously the

things that Eastern sages have described

about the sensation of suffering so I

was you know i' been studying toward

this for years and I thought this is the

last self-help book I'm ever going to

write because I really believe this is

it so people read the book and then they

would come to me and they'd say I have

put my whole life in Integrity but I'm

so scared all the time I am so afraid so

I started looking into it and realized

that anxiety is skyrocketing all over

the world it is by far the most common

mental health challenge that people face

something like uh 284 million people

last I checked were clinically

diagnosable with with anxiety disorder

during the pandemic year 2020 anxiety

went up all over the world by a full

25% and here's the thing about

anxiety it's like one of those Tire

rippers that you drive across and you

can't drive back because the way the

brain is structured when you get into

anxiety it just keeps going up and up

and getting worse and worse and worse

and then when you get a lot of people

who are experiencing this intense

anxiety and they can't get out of it

they create a culture that reflects

anxiety and fosters anxiety without

really meaning to but that becomes if

you're if you're stuck in this very

mechanistic grasping way of being um

anxiety is inevitable and actually lawed

so I was amazed to find that Jeff Bezos

one of the richest men in the world says

in his quarterly report and loves to say

in many settings that he tells all of

the thousands of Amazon employees who

work under him he wants them all to wake

up terrified every morning and that's

the word he uses terrified and to stay

terrified all day because that makes

them

productive but most of these people are

just getting by financially he wants

them to be afraid all the time so that

he and the stockholders

can get more stuff and they already have

so much stuff you

know like 1% of the world's people own

something like 95 no 50% of the total um

wealth of the world is owned by the top

1% it's

insane and so we're saying yes get up be

terrified as long as you're

productive and you know what but when

you get really productive and you earn a

lot of stuff and that's still your only

way of being you still wake up terrified

every morning and you st stay anxious

all day long fear see fear is like being

shot from a cannon if a bear came in

here we would both go whoa and we'd get

very clear instructions from our biology

to either fight flee freeze you know

hide under the table I would feed you to

the bear good luck with that good luck

with that I'm double your weight you

could totally take that bear I'm not

going to risk it I'd be out of here no

you would you would win anyway it would

eat me and then you would win

yeah and then our fear if we were like

other animals would subside M that's

normal fear an anxiety instead of being

like shot from a cannon it's like being

haunted something bad happens or we hear

about something bad happening and we get

that jolt of fear but instead of acting

and then relaxing we turn it into a

verbal story so a group of psychologists

um I think in the 90s decided to try to

figure out why humans of all animals are

the only ones who commit suicide on a

regular basis and what they found out

the answer is

language we humans have the capacity to

use language to create an abstract

vision of the future

that is more horrifying than the

prospect of Our Own Death we choose

death over the story of fear that we

carry in our minds and the spiral

happens because there's a jolt of fear

then a story about the fear and then

there's a story about how we have to

control the world so that we won't be in

danger anymore and we have to control

our loved ones so they want me in danger

and we have to control we just have to

control

but we honest to God really can't

control very much so then we get worried

we get even more scared and that feeds

back into these primitive brain

structures that say fear and then it

creates a bigger story and a more

control efforts and it goes up and up

and up and it doesn't go down because

that part of the brain has a very

peculiar I don't know how this evolved

it has this tendency to to truly believe

that nothing but itself

exists so you're going to have to

explain the brain to me in the context

you're describing it for me to

understand some of Point um tell me what

I need to know about the brain I'm going

to draw a little picture of it on my

iPad here so I can stay with you all

right so you've got your brain and it's

it's uh symmetrical right yeah to mirror

image there something in the middle

called the Corpus colosan that connects

it and I'm about to vastly oversimplify

and I'm not a neuroscientist so

neurologists I I beg you to forgive me

uh I know that the whole brain is

working almost all the time and that

left right uh

simplifications about the hemispheres of

the brain are

oversimplifications nevertheless there

are very dramatic differences between

what happens and so I'm going to talk to

those so on the left side you have this

thing called the anxiety spiral where

there's a little tiny part of your brain

called the amydala and it's very

primitive every animal with a spine has

one of these um or something very close

to it and its job is to make you safe by

being alarmed when you see unfamiliar

things it feeds information to layers of

the brain that are also ancient but not

as old and these on the left hemisphere

make you immediately start thinking of

ways to control a situation and then

when it gets to the outermost layer of

the left hemisphere which handles things

like time and language it starts to tell

a story defending the feelings it's

having so that's what the left

hemisphere does in this one little

compartment on the right side you also

have an amigdala you actually have two

of all these structures on the right

side the amydala also goes ah something

unfamiliar little burst

of then

and the right side it creates

curiosity instead of

aversion have you ever rubber necked at

an accident is that when you're like

what look yeah everybody slows down and

you're like what what happened what

happened course and and I always think

oh I should look away this is I'm being

like vois but I still really want to

look and the reason is that we evolved a

tendency to move away from frightening

things to be safe but toward them in so

far as we can figure out what happened

and avoid that happening to us so

curiosity is intense around Things We

Fear that's why the the average American

Child by the time they're ready for

college has witnessed on TV or or online

16,000 or is it 60,000 murders we're

terrified of murder so we're obsessed

with it you do not have mystery stories

written about robbery it's murder okay

so the right side of migul goes

curious and then it starts to connect

things how can I figure this out that's

like that other thing so this is what

must have happened it's a

detective and it starts to put together

its own version of what happened doesn't

use language but it uses very Vivid

images and sensory details and it can

connect connect things in ways that are

highly original and inventive so you

immediately start to get

creative what I found in in the

wonderful books I wrote I read about

anxiety they always talked about how to

get your anxiety to calm

down but for me that wasn't enough as an

individual or just as a

theoretician because that just gets you

to the you flatten your anxiety but if

you go into the right hemisphere of your

brain and start to get creative

something really magical happens just as

anxiety shuts off

creativity creativity can shut down

anxiety it's like these two parts of the

brain

toggle and if you go to any traditional

culture you will find the Wise people

the elders the medicine people of that

culture talking about the Oneness of all

things it's not a New Concept

what I realized is that if I

deliberately chose to push my brain

toward

creativity and get the right side moving

my anxiety shut down and then I started

testing it on clients and on groups of

people online I'd design these you know

experiments because I was trained as a

sociologist and consistently I found

that this is the way to get rid of this

horrific scourge that is ruining so many

people's lives and what I always hear is

people say well there are real problems

we really should be

afraid my answer to that is if you were

in a horrible car accident God forbid

and you had many

injuries would you want the surgeons

working on you to be in a state of panic

or calm

creativity the only way we're going to

fix the problem we've made with our

fear-based

Behavior the only way to solve problems

this big is to access the incredible

capacity of human

creativity I believe we can do that as

individuals and as a

species so how would I go about

switching into this right hemisphere if

I'm feeling anxious what would you

recommend that I do it's so easy it's so

amazingly easy

now your brain naturally goes toward

anxiety because of something called the

negativity bias and I always think of it

as 15 puppies in a Cobra if I gave you a

box and it had 15 puppies and a cobra in

it what would catch your attention the

snake and that's because in evolutionary

terms paying attention to the SN snake

is a good idea yeah but um it we have

such a strong negativity bias in our

culture and we very little to pull us

back into communion with Oneness we

don't have nature around us anymore so

we have to do that we can trick our

brains into doing that and if you want

to play a little with this sure okay

tell me what to do first I want you to

think of something that makes you feel a

bit anxious maybe not panicky but

anxious and something you're willing to

like tell us what it is okay um

something that makes me feel a little

bit anxious yeah

this is an interesting one

um sounds like a strange thing to say

but um when my partner is not

happy and I know she's not happy but

she's not telling me why and I'm around

her and I can tell from her vibe her

face she's not happy about something and

I have no idea what it is okay I think

there will be many people out there who

know what this feels like yeah you are

describing a domestic a tiny domestic

nightmare that many of us feel so think

about that think about what that feels

like and just notice what it does to

your body and to your emotions MH what's

happening in your body if you're in that

situation with your partner like my

breath is short uhhuh yeah right I just

feel tense and I I become quite

impatient because I just need the answer

to like alleviate the anxiety yeah so

you've gone to a fight ORF flight nous

system arousal State okay uhuh something

something's wrong okay I'm very focused

yeah yeah I'm very focused and I'm very

like I'm anxious but I'm also a little

bit snappish because I'm I'm F fleeing

on one side I need to get out of this

situation but I'm fighting on the other

side like tell me what's wrong so you've

got a full fight ORF flight thing

happening so you can get into that by

imagining the situation now I want you

to imagine something else very vividly

um and it would probably help if you

close your eyes um have you ever eaten

an orange yeah all right so imagine that

you are holding an orange MH um it's a

nice ripe heavy delicious orange at the

peak of its ripeness I can tell you

you've already smelled it so you can

smell the Citrus you just take a bite of

it to break the seal of the of the

peeling and just feel that little spray

of citric acid that pops up when you

bite the peel and then the bitterness of

the

Rind and then as you bite in the juice

gets in your mouth it's sweet it's a

little bit

Tangy uh you can feel the filaments of

the skin and the stringiness of the

insides and you can pull it back you

pull back the peel you can feel it on

your fingernails you can smell it um put

just put the broken part to your mouth

and like squeeze the orange and let some

juice get into your mouth and taste it

completely and then swallow it and then

enjoy the sensation of tasting feeling

hearing even this

experience okay how's your anxiety my

anxiety went away it's gone yeah because

I asked you to use sensory imagination

mhm and that's handled by the right

hemisphere it's not in the left so

instead of verbal imagination which can

create horror stories you were in a

sensory

experience and what I don't think people

realize is that we're always imagining

what's going to happen to us in the next

few days weeks months years but we're

imagining it based on what we think is

real which is all the horror stories

we're hearing about oh you know I need

to mind my health I need to there will

be accidents there will will be you know

my loved ones will die we have all these

stories that we haven't happened yet

they may they're not lies but that's in

the mind as we make our choices I need

to get more money that whole

thing when you imagine forward with your

senses in a way that brings relaxation

how's your body when you're in the

orange thing you said it was tense when

you're in anxiety what happens to your

physical body when you're

completely connected to the experience

of this imaginary orange relaxes your

body relaxes yeah you start breathing

more deeply you stop producing all the

the cortisol the GL glucocorticoids the

adrenaline that you had in the fight

flight State and now you're starting to

produce serotonin and dopamine and and

the what they call the tend and befriend

hormones so you're say if you say you

could hold that in energy and your

partner is still tense and running

around but you're staying in

this relaxed

State can you then instead of being

afraid of her start to be curious about

what's going on instead of saying tell

me what's going on it's more like wow

she's really T I wonder what that's

about and you could even ask her

honey I don't want to step on your toes

here but the vibe I'm getting is that

you're not okay like can I help you so

it's a very very different thing to

approach conflict um one of the people I

wrote about in this book is Chris Voss

one of the FBI's top hostage

negotiators and when he's dealing with a

violent

Psychopathic terrorist who has people as

hostages he's ready to kill Chris Voss

says this is how you deal with

him gently

with a soft voice curious about his

experience and empathetic about it and

you're just thinking what this is not in

the

movies but the human amydala is a

frightened animal most of the time and

we all know that if you run at a

frightened animal and say tell me what

you want it doesn't get less

frightened so what you just did was move

your nervous system into a state

where you can be a field of Peace for

someone else who's anxious do you have

to do the orange thing the whole time to

get into that state no no no there are

many tricks do you want to do some more

sure

let all right here's one of my

favorites um and I got this from a

brilliant artist and professor at

Harvard William Ryman who I was his

lucky enough to be his teaching

assistant for a few years and this is

one of the things that he used to do to

get the students to shut down the the

left side of their brain well not shut

it down but to use the right side of the

brain as well because the left side of

the brain can't draw very well I have to

tell you this so all I want you to do is

put your stylus there over toward the

right uh Center of your field Y and

write your first name the way you

usually sign

it yeah all right the way I usually sign

it or write it the way you usually sign

it

okay yeah okay so the way I usually sign

it is a bit more licated o that's

beautiful okay so now put your P your

stylist just to the left of the

signature and now replicate the

signature but this time write it in

Mirror writing back cords take as much

time as you need gosh take as much time

as you need so difficult just breathe

wait I've got it wrong already can I rub

out absolutely you have as many tries as

you need

suar notice how the rhythm of your hand

goes when you're signing moving right

and try to see if you can find that

rhythm going the opposite direction I

might need pen and paper using pencil

and paper because they're tactile yeah

is actually you're going to have easier

access to it because you're have you're

going to have more access to the right

side of your brain this is so difficult

why is my signature so so complicated

you're doing brilliantly

you did it terrible yay no not terrible

now but the torture is not over Stephen

it's terrible it's beautiful you said

you wouldn't lie I I just SP your I just

meant your first name anyway okay is

good now while you were doing that you

might have felt intense frustration and

a sense of but when when you're anxious

about it you actually can't do it you

have to become engrossed with it in

order to do it because your brain is

creating new neurons synapses that have

never existed before you've never done

this before so you are fundamentally

changing your brain teaching in a skill

it has never had and this is what

children are going through when they

learn to write for the first time but

what you just did was connect to parts

of the brain that are in the right side

so this is why we used to make these

poor students do this because once they

could we had another book we worked with

called Drawing is forgetting the name of

what you see as long as you call it a

cup you can't draw it you draw your

image of a cup but when you forget to

call it anything it just becomes a shape

like your signature had to just become a

shape and shapes are on the right

hemisphere so what you just did was a

it's it's like

powerlifting you forced your brain to

create synapses that were brand new that

were taking you into a state of learning

deep

learning similar to what happens to

Children if you let them run around in

nature so there was a study done at Nasa

in the 60s to identify creative

Geniuses and they found that two% of the

adults they sought out like college

graduates were creative geniuses after a

while a few years they decided to try

giving it to four and fiveyear olds 98%

of them were creative

Geniuses and I think that probably the

other 2% were just having a bad

day what

happens between the moment you're four

years old a full-on creative genius

learning new things the way you just did

day and day out and adulthood where your

genius has mainly gone dark

it's because you stop trying things that

are brand new like that you're put in

the factory line in school and taught to

learn in a completely different way

that's based on shame and fear and

artificial skills that don't mean much

to you and right and wrong answers yeah

everything's right or wrong everything's

very judgmental in nature nothing's

judgmental um uh one of the things I've

done with groups of clients is take them

into a forest and uh with the help of my

uh another coach who's a great Woodsman

we have them we give them the tools to

make fire with sticks and rocks but they

have to work as a team and then we say

make fire but you can't talk about it

because language is in the left

hemisphere and sometimes they're out

there for four hours and the whole time

it's like ah what are we doing they try

all these different things and then I've

never had a group that didn't do it they

figure it out and you end up with a

little um flame in your hands and you

feed it a few bits of dried Moss or

whatever and you blow into it and it

starts to smoke and then smoke heavily

and then suddenly it just bursts into

flame and there's this feeling there's

this Promethean feeling oh my God we can

do

anything and

the fact that that's how we're built to

learn and there's joy in it there's a

kind of it's an achievement but Nature's

not saying wrong right you get a you get

an F you get an A you get higher levels

no you get fire or you don't get fire no

judgment so what does this mean for me

on a like day-to-day basis if I

understand the power of this does this

mean that I I should draw my name a lot

or is there something that I that we can

all be doing to alleviate our anxiety

and to get us into the right hemisphere

of our brain well there's to me there's

a three-step process and there are three

sections in the book the first one I I

use it with the acronym cat calm art and

Transcendence this is how it works the

first third of the book is just how to

calm your brain it's been taught to be

anxious um it is biologically

pre-programmed to be anxious so to calm

it down most people will say they'll

come in and tell me I want to fight my

anxiety I want to get it I want to end

it I want to bring it down I want it

gone because they think it's a broken

machine but it's not a broken machine

it's a frightened animal and if if you

came in and I said to you okay I want to

end you I want to bring you down I'm

going to fight you till you're gone

would you be less afraid or more

afraid so they're attacking the part of

themsel that's anxious and it makes it

more anxious

so and that's what we're taught to do

end it force it to calm down with

chemicals one of the most ghastly things

that ever happened in the in Psychiatry

was that they used to literally take

people who had you know inexurable uh

anxiety and literally put a screwdriver

through the eye socket and up into the

brain and just mix it

around that's how mechanistic we are

about our own

Minds we can fix it with a screwdriver

that's a very left hemisphere way to

think and it's literally attacking

ourselves but we're all we're all born

with the intrinsic knowledge of how to

calm a frightened animal so if you found

a terrified puppy on your stoop one

morning and you decided to try to help

it you would instinctively know that how

to do that what what would you do um

I would approach it slowly or not

approach it at all and I would get down

yes and I'd be very gentle and say hello

not ask it to come to me yeah and if it

didn't you'd give it space you'd give it

time you'd sit there with it yeah and

just the way your energy just changed

now you get down you begin to smile in a

very sweet way and I could feel the

tolerance and the gentleness and the

space that you would give this creature

we've got to learn to be gentle to

ourselves we are taught to be violent to

ourselves biohack that make you know

make yourself eat this and do that

and and instead if we could just go to

the anxious part like say you're with

your partner and she's acting weird and

you're feeling

anxious generally what we do is we try

to control the situation what can I do

can I make her happy I'll bring her

flowers I'll do whatever right have an

argument

instead of trying to control her the

best approach is go inside find the part

of yourself that's

afraid so if you're in that situation

and she's nervous and you just start to

observe your own

anxiety like okay what does that feel

like who is that in there who's who's

the anxious part of me and just notice I

mean try it right now if you don't

mind she's upset she's t she's not

telling you the problem notice the

anxiety where is it in your body

exactly it's like here in my chest okay

in your chest so allow that and say to

it I'm going to give you space I'm here

I'm going to be here with you uh I know

she's scaring you but I've got you it's

okay she's not going to hurt us I can go

in the other room with you if you need

and sit with it and say let me know what

what are you

feeling tell me everything you get to

feel exactly the way you

feel and I'm here to listen to anything

you want to tell me and I will not hurt

you and I will not try to stifle you or

make you go

away so how does that change anything

yeah for some reason it just um the

volume went down so describe it it's

just like the volume is went down it

made me wonder if just because just by

you saying that made me wonder if if in

those moments I should be writing it out

that can be really helpful there's a

psychologist named James Panabaker who

found that if he just had students he

just did this experiment once as a

graduate student he had students write

for 15 minutes about something that was

upsetting to them and many of them came

out of the experiment in tears it really

upset them for an hour or two he had

other students just write what they did

last summer or

whatever so there was this brief period

where the ones who had stirred up some

turmoil felt

unsettled but they in the in the weeks

and even the years subsequent to that

experiment they had fewer doctor's

visits they had less anxiety they had

better relationships they had better

everything so he for his whole career

just did these writing exercises where

we he would have people just Express

themselves

not to show anyone not even to

reread just to express MH the parts of

us that are frightened needs need to be

heard the parts of society that are

hurting need to be heard I'm astonished

by the um Truth and Reconciliation

councils held in South Africa after

Nelson Mandela became president these

people who had been

through absolute

atrocities and they were just heard they

were allowed to tell their stories to

the people who had hurt them and other

people who were on their side and the

telling of

it avoided you know what everyone

thought would be a blood bath and it it

of course didn't fix all the problems

but it unburdened to a large extent

people who had been through things that

I can't even imagine so yes write it

write it down so she's in the other room

she's acting weird

something might come up about like how

old is that anxious part maybe it's

young maybe it's

not you said something at the start you

said that

um anxiety is like driving over a metal

spike in those police like chases that's

what I was thinking about like the

police chases where they throw out the

metal spikes and the car over why why

did you use that analogy what are you

what are you saying there about the

nature of anxiety that's what it's like

if you get stuck in what it's called the

anxiety spiral uh in the brain the

anxiety cycle some people call it um so

what you have to do in that situation is

to extend the metaphor get out of the

car disarm the mechanism get that

mechanism out of the way you know the

the tire ripping thing and then you can

back out but the stopping and getting

out that's the calming step of anxiety

and that's what you're doing here as

weird as it sounds when you write your

name back backwards and you come into a

state of physiological calm you are

getting rid of the tire rippers You're

Building Pathways that go into the

calmer parts of the brain so um the same

thing when you were imagining eating an

orange you're calming yourself and it it

allows you to

reverse it allows you to leave finally

but our culture tends to not allow you

to leave it's always telling you horror

stories so then once you get really

calm and you've taken care of that part

of yourself I said the acronym is C

cat once you get to calm then very

paradoxically it blew me away when I

realized this then you need art and I

don't mean drawing I mean making things

making things in three dimensions making

events happen making a podcast like what

was the fire in you that made you make

things and how did it feel when you were

in the

making in the making it usually feels

great yeah like in the process of making

actually me and my partner went and did

um last weekend we went and made some

art and I was like stressed and stuff

and so when we went and did this art I'd

like never painted in my life yeah so we

went to this like random Loft and there

was this guy there and uh he had these

massive two pieces of cardboard and like

loads of spray cans and paint and stuff

and we just painted for maybe 3 hours or

something yeah and I was totally lost in

it I mean that's the way people describe

it they describe it as being lost in it

right yeah and do you know that if

people have been through a trauma and

they're allowed to draw about it even if

they can't draw you know

professionally they have an 80% lower

chance of developing PTSD there's

something about creating stuff and it

could be a company or it could be a

spray paint on a cardboard

um my partner um started making bead

bracelets a while ago she's very busy

she doesn't have time for this but it

makes her

so content and we were talking about how

if you go into a tomb in Egypt from

5,000 years ago what are you going to

find among other things beaded bracelets

if you go to the Amazon rainforest and

contact an uncontacted tribe what might

you find beaded bracelets people are

making beaded bracelets all the time and

they serve no function they are precious

pointless things she said that we make

and all cultures make we make music I

mean I think about the cultures in

Jamaica one of the worst slavery

colonies in the history of the world it

it was just it made what was happening

on the mainland look gentle by

comparison and out of that you get these

incredible art forms

reggae Dance I mean like in the middle

of

being crushed having literally

everything taken from them people were

still making

art this is a part of the human spirit

that is just it's indomitable and our

culture pushes it to the fringes okay

Stephen you can do that on a weekend

that's nice but did you really make any

money you know get a real job yeah how

does this link again back to the brain

so if I'm creating I'm making some art I

was doing that spray paint thing with

the paint in the I'll show a picture of

it after I actually think cool I want to

see but how is that helping me to calm

my anxiety it's because of the way the

structures on the left side um they're

obsessed with grasping um material

objects acquiring controlling other

people always thinking about fear

and there does seem to be this toggle

effect that anxiety and creativity just

can't work at the same time so the

moment you begin to create like when you

said I could write this that's

expressive writing that's artistic

writing and all of a sudden the toggle

switches off in anxiety and on in

creativity so I believe that there's

another Spiral on the right side of the

brain but instead of spiraling tightly

into fear it spirs it it spirals

outward and ultimately you get to the

final thing there's calming there's

Artistry and then there's

Transcendence or Awakening when you're

there sometimes we call it Flo chicks at

Nei the psychologist who named it Flo um

really looked into this and it's a state

of creating and performing at a level so

difficult we almost can't do it the

exactly the way you were writing your

name it's

like and you can have what's called The

Rage to master where you're just like

I'm

can't but when you get it and I'm sure

you've had this with many things you've

created in your life it's like flying

it's heaven and there's a time in the

process of creation creating where the

sense of self Falls away and the sense

of control isn't necessary and what you

feel is creation itself sort of moving

with you and through you and it's

Blissful and I believe that is the state

in which we are meant to spend almost

all our time and I think that would

transform our Consciousness this is a

related but slightly unrelated um topic

but there's a lot of people and certain

demographic suffering in different ways

at the moment yes there's like a

conversation I hear a lot about men

suffering with meaning and purpose and

those things and I hear this other

conversation about young women suffering

and depression anxiety being on the rise

there when you think about those two

group groups so like men and young women

what is it that you think is the cause

causal factor of their suffering because

their suffering is similar and different

yeah well it's it's conditioned by the

way the brain works it works very

differently in pubescent girls than it

does in say adult men young adult men

their brains work very differently from

Elders that's why in traditional

societies the young men would be herded

together and sometimes for example in

some cultures their faces would be

scared they would leave their name

behind they would leave all the

possessions they had or burn them and

they would be taken into the Wilderness

by the elders and the elders would

proceed to scare The Living Daylights

out of them making strange noises in the

brush um putting them through a kind of

trial and the result of this is it kind

of disintegrates the ego and you still

see it in like if you see movies about

the the Army and how the the tough but

Heart of Gold Sergeant breaks down the

young soldiers egos so that they finally

say okay I am not the center of the

universe I need my brothers to exist and

I I bow down in the face of nature which

is greater than I am and then the elders

say all right now you're ready to be a

man go back to the village and tell

people your new name which you get to

choose young girls at puberty go through

the opposite experience in many cultures

they are isol ated in places away from

All Humans because the primary

psychological task According to some

theories of males is that they're born

sort of differentiated and very

individual and they need to learn to

integrate with other people to be

whole females tend to be born or people

identified as female are born very

integrated and the task of female

maturation is to

individuate so young girls who haven't

they're just at the stage where they

need to find out who they are as an

individual and instead they're very

integrated with networks of people who

are psychologically attacking each other

in ways that are extremely harmful to

their psyche at that stage in a

traditional culture they might be put in

say a hut that was dark and given food

every day but you're in there by

yourself to until you learn I'm okay I

can actually go inside myself and find

the truth of who I am on the other hand

the boys are out there going ah I can

give up thinking I'm all that and I can

kneel in reverence at the Oneness of it

all and then they come back together and

they've got a lot in common at that

point because the men now realize they

need people and the women I realize that

they're having Independence exactly and

so each can understand the other better

I mean the wisdom of these cultural

Traditions is incredible and we just

don't have it we don't have it the the

internet in particular spins out the the

individuation of young men makes them

feel like you know they do have bands

and brothers but it's like we're under

attack man and I really I'm gonna try to

I have to achieve I'm going to try it

this way and I'm G to try it that way

and there's a lot of battle games and

stuff but none of the humility that

comes from the elders MH and these young

girls are just caught in horal Winds of

social toxicity when they might be

taught to

meditate and we can still do all those

things we can still access those things

you talked about suicidal ideation

earlier on being unique to humans when

we think about suicidal ideation it's

part particularly prominent in young men

I think in the UK the stat is still the

case that the single biggest killer of

young men is themselves under the age of

45

wow so why why is that you know we

talked about meaning and purpose and

stuff earlier why are young men killing

themselves at alarming

race because it is easier in the mind to

take arms against a sea of troubles like

it's Hamlet speech you know why should I

stay alive in a world where everyone

dies and we're all assaulted by the

slings and arrows of Outrageous Fortune

he's just watched his father die and

he's like why would I keep going I could

just kill myself because men are taught

combat as a way of control if you're

afraid every movie will tell you get a

gun like the Matrix where the guy learns

he can control everything with his mind

everything he's controlling with his

mind so what does he do he says we're

going to need a lot of guns you can

control the universe with your mind you

don't need guns right but there's just

this obsession with weaponry and that's

kind of in the DNA but when you get

people in a spiral of fear it becomes

intense and Military all the genocides

committed throughout history have relied

on like really toxic leaders accessing

vulnerable young men and militarizing

them against other people which is

really easy and if they're on their own

isolated and there are no Elders taking

them in groups doing things they turn

that on themselves so what is the what

is the solution then for young men uh I

would say look to our ancestors you know

let's take young men um the the coach

Michael trada that I used to go with to

make fire in the woods he originally

worked with and probably still does work

with groups of young men and he used to

wear us uh he was he was a disciple of

um I think it was the Odawa tribe of

indigenous Americans and he always wore

this shirt that said listen to

grandfather and he would take these

confused hurting young men out and he

would put them through the trials that

they would have had in a traditional

society and they would have to learn to

make fire together and they would have

to learn to feed each other what they

could find and um use their skills in

hunting building all of that for the

community and I just watched him heal

boy after boy after

boy and it that's not that hard to do

why is it he healing for them doing that

using their skills hunting surviving

because it's what we evolved to do like

the lives we're giving people now the

lives most of us are living are so

alienating it's such an abnormal this

here is not

normal right this is not a forest or a

beach or a desert this is all man-made

it's full of right angles which don't

even very rarely exist in nature only in

crystals for people that AR watching

video she's pointing at the studio yeah

I'm pointing at the studio which is

Lovely by the way absolutely

state-of-the-art

but if you talk about human evolution

and the incredible sophisticated nervous

systems we have they evolved intimately

for a totally different environment and

this is is scary so what do we do about

it because you know the more I listen to

you I think maybe I should run away like

maybe I should I have the funds to run

away I could I could go forever and I do

wonder I go probably be happier maybe

maybe I'd start creating though and then

this is what I said I did a solo episode

on my podcast recently I said if I ran

away then I'd start creating and then

you know I might start a podcast on the

beach in barley and then you would you

would create stuff you can't help

yourself and that's why you are

obviously like physically healthy you

seem incredibly balanced and wise like

you've been making stuff so you're very

much like your sorry to use California

language but your energy is very calm

but also very

exuberant your

story is um is heartbreaking in many

ways but it's it's so evidently shaped

the person that sits in front of me

today because you're at a very young age

which you've not we've not really spoken

about much you were part of the Mormon

religion oh yes I

was take me into that before 10 years

old how that experience before the age

of 10 has shaped the person you are so I

was born not just into a Mormon um

family but a Mormon Community where

everyone shared the same beliefs you

didn't call people um Mr and M it was

brother and sister brother Smith sister

Smith um and

I was told from very young I mean you're

indoctrinated at 18 months you start

religious training and they tell you

things like um you know if men live well

and they're part of the Mormon church

then when they die they get their own

planet and all the women they want I

like all right like you're three years

old what do you know right and Jesus is

going to come over the mountains and all

the graves are going to fly open and all

the bodies the literal bodies of all the

dead people are going to rise up out and

go join Jesus which is why we don't

cremate bodies we bury them because

they're gonna come back to

life and um I would have nightmares of

Jesus coming over the mountains the

graves flying open all the people around

me are rising up and I would run as a

little kid this happened over and over

again this dream where I was trying to

jump high enough to go with the people

who were being saved and I couldn't do

it I was I just kept coming back down so

I lived in absolute Terror all the time

and I also didn't know what was real

because none of it nothing felt

real so that was it's very disconcerting

but because I'd never had any other

experience I just thought well this is

life so that was rough and at 28 years

old you realized that you'd been

sexually assaulted as a child yeah I

think I had

I had hints of it actually friends told

me that I had told them about it in high

school and I don't remember telling them

so I had pretty much repressed it my

father was a very very

renowned um scholarly defender of

Mormonism his job was to take the claims

of the doctrine and validate them you

know

academically but in order to do that I

talked to many people who many of he had

five people working with him to help him

translate various documents of different

languages and they said he would just

make things up and put them as footnotes

in different languages so no one was

likely to check them um and it was

called lying for the

Lord which is so weird I mean it means

you have a god who's fundamentally

interested in helping people be like God

by lying

so yeah I was twisted in knots um when I

was little and then I think it twisted

my father into knots as well and I do

have memories and a lot of physical

scarring from sexual abuse that sort of

blew up in my into my

Consciousness right after I had that um

the light experience that came to me in

surgery and um it actually told me

during the surgery you're about to go

through something very very difficult

but I've always been with you and I'll

always be with you never forget

that and that's why I decided not to lie

anymore and that's why when I started

having these

memories it didn't matter

because because connection with that

light and never forgetting it was the

realest maybe the only absolutely true

thing that had ever happened to me and I

was not leaving again abuse at the hands

of your father yes yeah and you

remembered that at 28 years old yeah you

recalled it at 28 years old it well it

it sort of exploded into my mind at

they're called intrusive flashbacks um

I'd had a lot of lot of symptoms of PTSD

my whole life without knowing it but my

oldest child got to be the age I was

when the abuse started occurring 5 years

old and she looked just like me at that

age and it every time I looked at her I

would just have these incredibly violent

it's not like a memory it's like it's

happening it's like you're completely

overwhelmed by it um for a period of

time and it was it was extraordinarily

hard I'm not going to lie it was bad and

I called my mother and and she said well

yes that's what happened I was like what

you agree with me and she said why

shouldn't I I know him better than you

and I said okay so like what do I do and

she said well obviously you have to

protect the church you called your

mother to tell her you've been sexually

abused and you realized and she said yes

she knows well she called me and said

what's going on why why are you not

visiting us and I said all right I had

taken a vow not to lie so I told her the

truth expecting her to go into a rage or

something and she said well yeah that's

how it is um she said well yeah that's

how it is yeah I believe you that's that

sounds right that tracks what how how

did it track what did she know she said

I know him better than you do and I said

I don't remember this was 30 years ago

but I said

um he's really he's not an honest man

and she said no he's not

honest and then she said you better come

and make him a

cake which

is is weird frankly to say yes I believe

you were raped by your father at the age

of five and by the way the surgery I was

in when I had the light experience was

surgery to correct some of the scar

tissue left by the abuse I was it had

ripped internally and I was bleeding

internally and they just found all this

scar tissue and um where it probably

shouldn't have been

and so for a mother to sayoh yeah I

completely believe that's true and what

I think you should do about it is to

make your perpetrator a

cake kind of sums up the way I was

raised and I just I tried I made the

cake I went down I served the cake and

then I just couldn't go back I just

couldn't did you confront him I did yeah

um I confronted him at first and then

you years later 10 years later or so

when he was 90 91 I was born when he was

52 and

[Music]

um uh I wanted to meet with him after

I'd forgiven him to tell him that I'd

forgiven him so that he would not have

to carry that because he was a very very

miserable strange disassociated human

being like really really weird um people

he was brilliant but very very very

broken and um I think he had to choose

between his entire sense of reality and

his religion and he chose the religion

and he chose the job of talking other

people into believing the religion and I

think it just completely broke him and

that plus um he was in World War II and

saw a lot of action there and he was I

forgive him you know by the way anyone

listening to this you do know not have

to forgive your

perpetrator find a way to be in your own

truth in your own Integrity you will

heal you will be happier then you will

notice that there is no more anything to

forgive you're done did he acknowledge

that he had done it no

um it's very strange about it though he

didn't

say I never did that he said oh but that

was the evil

one meaning the devil and that was my

family was that I'd been sexually

assaulted by the devil as a child and

that that's why I had scars and so on

and so he said yeah that was the evil

one I think meaning the devil but maybe

he meant part of him that was evil he

never really talked to me my whole life

we never had like conversations he would

switch languages he would literally

physically run away from me it was very

very strange yeah wasn't a normal

childhood or adulthood

and after that phone call with your

mother where you confronted her about it

and she said that sounds about right um

I read that she then denied after oh she

totally retracted it yeah I mean she had

to live with him and she couldn't very

well like agree with me in his presence

so um when I asked her I I met with both

of them in my therapist's office and I

saidh did you tell me that you've agreed

with me and that it made sense to You'

and she said oh I just assumed you were

joking which was like nah that

no so did she ever admit that she had

said that no she never did I never saw

her again and but actually I have to say

if I had to as a child if I had to

choose one of my parents to be around it

would have been my father because my

mother

was just a big ball of misery and rage

and I never once remember feeling safe

around her why she I I had the distinct

impression she hated me really yeah

because Mormons believe that children

choose to be born to specific parents

and so and she had had five children and

one still birth and her body was over it

and she was done and she was sick and

depressed and miserable and then she had

three more children I was seventh of the

eight surviving children and the last

four of us she was really angry that we

had forced ourselves upon her she did

not want us and she was angry because we

had been born and she was depressed

right I I read was reading through your

story about how she spent a lot of time

in bed upset crying yeah like all the

time I had a weird privilege of watching

her funeral funeral on um what do they

call it closed circuit TV during the

pandemic or just after um one of my

sisters had gotten back in touch with me

over after 30 years of no contact and it

was the strangest thing because I was

going to go do something that day and

then I thought no I've got to go lie

down in bed which I don't do and then

I've got to watch TV which I never do

during the day and then I got a text

from my sister saying our mom's funeral

is on TV right now at this link so I sat

there and I watched it and it was quite

validating one of my brothers got up and

started out by saying if you came here

expecting to hear stories of motherly

love you are at the wrong funeral really

yeah and

and my siblings said things like it's so

much that she was depressed it was kind

of like depression is who she was

was it was I feel

tremendous sadness for my mother

tremendous compassion and empathy to the

point I mean

heartbroken about the life she lived and

the life that many other women live sort

of in Crazy systems feeling they have no

power

um it just destroyed me to to feel how

much pain she was in but uh yeah she

didn't like

me did you ever figure out why your

parents were they way that they were

outside of the influence of the religion

was there anything that happened to them

oh yeah tons of things like they were um

my grandmother my mother's mother I

think was a complete psychopath she was

pr- naazy in World War II she I what

like who does that she was Swedish and

she just thought that was the right

thing to do um was there a suspicion

that your dad was abused oh he was

definitely abused by his mother he was

sexually abused by his yes yes and that

was known my mother had told me this

before um yeah she would do horrible

things she would put she would wound him

and put be Venom on his genitals and um

be very sexual toward him I mean it was

a mess it was

horrible the the things that happened to

at that age they left their fingerprints

on you as you went through your teen

years oh yeah I I was listening to an

interview you did where you were

describing being I think 17 18 years old

and you were thinking about ending your

own life oh constantly constantly yeah

like it was a daily struggle not to

through through what period of your life

I would say

about 16 well it started right around 13

but by the time I was 16 it was pretty

constant 17 189 it

was all I could do to not commit suicide

and then um it kind of went on it went

to a level of like I can hang on during

my

20s but I think I was 32 the day I

realized it was the first day I

remembered that I hadn't wanted to kill

myself yeah why why do you think that

was so present in your life those

thoughts because I was in tremendous

amounts of physical and psychological

pain and are the two linked they were

for me yeah they were very much um

psychogenic pain you know the body mind

interface is not there's not much

separation and for me one of the things

I talked about in the way of Integrity

is that when we lie our bodies get very

weak so um like I could do a simple

little hokey test with you where I could

oh you want to do it okay so stick your

arm out yeah and hold it up don't let me

push it down okay don't let me push down

yeah okay got that now I want you to do

that while lying and the LIE I'd like

you to say is I love to

vomit okay I love to vomit say it

holding your arm up yeah say it I love

to vomit why that's so weird now say I

love fresh

air um I love fresh I love fresh

air yeah I'm trying my very heart say it

again I love fresh air now say I love to

vomit I love to vomit why is that that's

so strange this is why polygraph

machines work on everybody with

Psychopaths just for people that

couldn't see that because they were

listening when I don't know if I've just

been like messed with in some way but

when I said I love to

vomit I she could push my hand down but

when I said I love fresh air she

couldn't push my hand down and she was

trying both times she was pushing hard

both times and I would think that I'd be

able to resist both forces but when I

said I love to vomit it was like the

only way I can describe it was I wasn't

actually connected to my strength and my

hand exactly I wasn't it was like I was

inside my head so I couldn't also at the

same time think about you you're about

to push me right it was like there was

two different systems yes because the

body lives in reality the body is honest

only the mind and only the verbal mind

can lie to us and tell us things um that

we we can believe even though they're

not true so I love to vomit as a

statement that says it's okay to for me

to be feel horrible but a smaller

version of this is I often speak to

groups and often they're in like hotel

ballrooms or in auditoriums and I'll

stop right in the middle of the speech

and say apropo of nothing is everyone

comfortable and they'll say yes and no

really truly is everyone are you

genuinely comfortable are you really

comfortable and they say yes go on with

your speech and then I say so how many

of you if you were sitting at home alone

if you were at home alone right now how

many of you would be in exactly the

position you're in at this moment and

nobody raises a hand and then I say why

not and they have to sit and think for a

long time before someone finally says

I'm not completely comfortable this

way and I would say well that's okay

because humans can tolerate a lot of

suffering and this is mild what concerns

me and should concern you is that 30

seconds ago you swore to me in broad

daylight that you were absolutely

comfortable well you're you knew you

weren't your body knew you weren't

comfortable and your mind was doing this

little this little trick where it goes

very quickly through this okay in order

to listen to speeches we sit in

uncomfortable positions and that's okay

because it's worth the benefit we get

out of it so given that I am tolerably

comfortable but all you think is I'm

comfortable when you're not comfortable

so people come to me and they're in jobs

where they're not comfortable in

relationships where they're like

sometimes in intense suffering in

religions where they're not comfortable

in all kinds of places and they're they

think they're comfortable but they're

getting sick they're getting getting

physically sick or they're getting

addicted to a substance because they're

trying to numb the discomfort they won't

acknowledge and so pretty much all I do

is help people get in touch with a

really really benevolent friend called

suffering when you know what makes you

suffer you're getting accurate

information from your entire

neurological system about what's working

for you and what isn't

and what would be better what would be

more comfortable just a little bit and

if you keep correcting I call them one

degree turns I would be a little more

comfortable doing this so I did the like

run off a cliff method don't do my way

do the one degree turns if you're in an

airplane and it turns one degree North

every half

hour over 10,000 miles you won't even

notice your turning but you'll be in a

completely different Place mhm and

that's just

noticing oh I'm this isn't very

comfortable for me I would rather do

this you know my girlfriend is anxious I

could break my back trying to figure out

what's going on and getting her enough

presents to make her happy or I could go

in the other room sit down be gentle

with myself maybe do a little writing

about how I feel that would be a little

more comfortable

it almost feels like we've been trained

not to listen to how we feel 100% 100%

as Sir Ken Robinson says you know we're

trained to think of our bodies as

mechanisms that take our heads to

meetings you know that the meetings are

all important and our heads are all

important and all the rest of our

evolution is meaningless to us that's a

very left hemisphere dominated way of

thinking and that's why Ian migil Chris

says live like people with right

hemisphere Strokes we're not even in our

bodies I think maybe you are more than

most people the way you talk about it

and the way you've made decisions

really it it speaks to me of a person

who finds what's right for him

very with a lot of

Integrity yeah well I think um I think

yeah one of the things I the reason I

say that is because I've been saying on

stage and wanted to see if you thought

it was true this idea CU people ask me

all the time they ask me about meaning

and purpose and what decision they

should make and should they quit their

job or quit their relationship and my

response for the last I'd say 12 months

has just been to try and impress upon

them that they were born with this thing

inside them which is how you feel yeah

and you you've learned not to listen to

it because your mother's opinion of

which university you go to has like

superseded it and Instagram has but I

know it's there because I know like

evolutionarily you wouldn't be here if

your body didn't have signals to tell

you to run to tell you to be scared to

tell to move away from this person so I

know it's there but you just probably

tuned it out yeah and um I say that to

people and I've almost never asked them

if that resonated with them but I just

just been saying it for a while so I

don't even know if it's like true but

it's just how I experience life CU my

decision like the reason why I'm like

here now is because of just I quit a lot

of stuff yes so like and I quit people

go you're so young it's like actually

it's not that I made great decisions

it's just I think the skill of quitting

was one that just came naturally to me

so like I don't like being at school

stopped going I don't like University I

left after the first lecture I started a

business did it for two years quit that

business out the blue started another

business did that one for six seven

years quit that one out of the blue I

love it and um it's it was all like the

I didn't need to have a place to go to I

didn't need to have like a better option

it was just this doesn't feel good I

love that but that's kind of running off

the cliff like thing is the the costs

are high and the rewards are high yeah

uh if you go gradually you're going to

get a small smaller amount of gain you

know by the year if you run off a cliff

you can have a really rough ride but you

might come out with a lot of positives

and your skill of quitting it reminds

me if people come to me I try to give

them every all the value in one session

like hear this and go away all right

take notes if you don't really want to

do something and you don't really have

to do something

don't do

it now give me my money and

go because that's the whole thing if you

don't want to do something and you don't

have to do it don't do it and that's a

really quick way to find out what you do

want what if you don't want to do it but

there's something telling you that you

have to so it could be like a horrible

work meeting or that that then you've

been invited to with that person which

you don't particularly like anyway that

baby shower you don't want to go to so I

like you have to get more and more